1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a system for distributing files and transmitting/receiving the distributed files, and more particularly to technologies of distributing files through a network and transmitting/receiving the distributed files.
2. Description of the Related Art
When a predetermined application program is executed in a method for transmitting/receiving files through a conventional network, a corresponding application program execution module sends a query to an update server to enquire whether at least one file needed for a corresponding application program has been updated. If files needed for the corresponding application program have been updated, the application program execution module receives the files needed for the application program from the update server according to a response to the query from the update server and performs an update operation for the application program.
However, where the capacity of files to be updated in the above-described conventional method is large and the number of computers desiring to access the update server is large when the update operation is performed, the load of a network is significant, and hence a connection to the update server may be frequently cut off or may not be appropriately performed. In this case, a period of time needed for performing the update operation increases.
To address the above-described problems, there has been recently developed a method for distributing the predetermined number of files to be updated, receiving the distributed files from the update server in advance, storing the distributed files, and executing a corresponding application program, when a user desires to execute the application program.
In other words, the recently developed method is useful in that it can distribute a predicted load of the network by receiving the predetermined number of distributed files to be updated before the application program is executed.
However, since the method independently and separately performs a process of transmitting the files to be updated and a process of executing the application program, there is another problem in that a period of time for waiting for the corresponding application program to be executed is long, where the number of files to be updated and the file capacity are large.
Moreover, there is another problem in that the method can receive only update files needed for executing the application program and cannot receive other files needed for executing other application programs.
For this reason, the applicant of the present invention has developed a system for distributing files in advance in a background process of an application program, and receiving and storing the distributed files, such that the load of a network can be reduced. Further, the system simultaneously performs a process of transmitting the files and a process of executing the application program, thereby reducing a period of time for waiting for the application program to be executed. Furthermore, the system receives the distributed files not only from a file server, but also from other client computers, and stores the received files, thereby significantly reducing the load of the file server or network.